There's been a bit of a scuttlebutt (is that the correct spelling of a non-word?) about the USDA's newly released 'hardiness zone map'. This is the gardener's equivalent of a food pyramid. It correlates to what you can plant and when. Or rather, what is more likely to survive once you plant it.
So, you can imagine the horror when the new map arrived and people who were once unable to plant a dogwood tree could suddenly, well, plant a dogwood tree. In other words, some zones changed quite significantly.
Thus the argument began: global warming or more accurate terrain readings? Since the degree change is fairly significant since 1990, I'm going with 80% global warming and 20% "they finally took lakes and oceans into consideration". But, I'm kind of a conspiracy theorist like that.
For me in Long Beach, I seem to have changed a letter. I always thought I was a 10 (um, you know, in garden speak), but apparently, I'm a 10
b. I'm not sure it's as big a difference as, say, going from a 34C to a 34D and suddenly your social life has a brighter outlook. It's probably more like how a year or so ago they changed the zodiac signs and I went from a Capricorn to a Sagittarius. Or was it to an Aquarius?
Anyway, just like I know in my heart I'm a Capricorn, my zone adjustment doesn't change the fact that I still can't plant rhubarb, but really WANT to.... It does, however, put me in the same exact zone as Malaga Spain and Nicosia Cyprus. Which in some weird way is kind of cool.
The map is fun. It's interactive so you can almost zoom in on your garden. It was interesting to see that our East/West beach put me in a much hotter zone than a few neighboring towns which are just a couple of miles down the coast:
The Map
The map is a good rule of thumb. But, truthfully, I'll probably continue to generally ignore it as well as my newly minted 10b status. I mean, I'm STILL going to plant corn this summer - who cares if I'm three blocks from the ocean?
Yep, I think I'll just pretend I'm still a perfect "10".
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